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Paranormal

Being that it’s Halloween time, movie theaters should be packed with scary movies. But this year, the fright-fest seems a little light, with the fourth Paranormal Activity and Sinister being about all there is. It’s a positive development, with studios having finally moved away from the endless slasher sequels, 1970s remakes, and torture-porn trash that typified horror films for so many years. The trend now, and it’s a good one, seems to be towards found-footage frights of the post-Blair Witch variety and amped-up variations on the old haunted house stories. Then you’ve got your zombie movies.

Now there’s The Bay, something of a genre-stew that comes courtesy of Paranormal Activity producer Jason Blum and, oddly enough, director Barry Levinson. Better known for Baltimore-set character studies and Homicide, Levinson this time helms a conspiracy- and ecological horror-tinged story (supposedly told via found footage confiscated by the federal government and then leaked) about mysterious events in an idyllic Maryland oceanside town. Flesh-eating somethings, zombies, and plague quarantines look to be just part of the queasy, blood-spattered mayhem.

You can see the trailer below; just wait for the scene with the man holding a fish by the mouth: